Eisteddfod

Today saw a SHARE with Schools’s first, as 15 volunteers, 5 PG coordinators and a faculty member worked alongside 120 Fitzalan High School pupils. Fitzalan were running their ever exciting Eisteddfod event–a Welsh cultural festival–so the pupils were out of normal timetable and doing all sorts of exciting extracurricular or enriching activities. We ran three workshops in parallel, with each being delivered twice to different pupils. The workshops consisted of the brand new Religion in the Media Workshop, the STEM Archaeology Workshop and the Museum Curatorship Workshop. All went fantastically, with some brilliant work being produced by the pupils. They were a pleasure to work with.

Some of the nice things the Fitzalan teachers said about us included:

On the brand new RE workshop:

​Excellent resources that engaged the pupils.

Excellent delivery by students

Students/postgrads were enthusiastic and confident in their knowledge

Pupils were fully engaged for the whole sessions. As librarian I often witness pupils are not able to remain focussed for an hour – but all were well behaved today.

About the STEM ​Archaeology workshop

The students were introduced to an area which they may never have an opportunity to experience. They were interested and inspired about archaeology.

Great team of people very at ease with delivering the contents. Great interactions, communication with comments. Especially the idea of the uni students go[ing] around and meeting/teaching each one of the groups.

The resources allow the pupils to visualise what is being discussed, and reach conclusion in their own times. (A lot of the pupils present today were EAL [English as an Additional Language] but they all were able to quickly understand and follow the lesson.

A big thank you to the plethora of student volunteers who made this visit possible and delivered so marvellously:

Jonathan Gilbert

As a Third Year Archaeology and Ancient History BA student I felt I needed to get some serious work experience under my belt before I graduated and joined the struggle of the job hunt. I was always told that I work well with children, and I have always had an interest in teaching, so SHARE with Schools sounded like a great opportunity for me. I must admit that, at first, my reasons for joining the project were selfishly orientated to building up my CV, but this soon changed when I went on my first workshop.

The workshops that I volunteered for included ‘Archaeological Skills’ with pupils in Year 7 – 9 at Fitzalan School, and ‘Romans in Wales’ for a variety of student year groups at Woodlands High School. The idea of working with children in a school environment was not an entirely new concept for me; I have previously worked at an after school club and holiday play scheme, at my local school, working with small groups of children. But this was far less formal than a classroom environment. SHARE with Schools on the other hand gives you the opportunity to work in the classroom, in a variety of challenging yet exciting situations. (more…)

A big thank you is well deserved for all of our volunteers this week. We saw some fantastic efforts from everyone involved, and were especially impressed by those participants who were delivering SHARE with Schools workshops for the first time.

Here are a couple of the great exhibits from the museum display challenge that we set pupils at Fitzalan High School as part of their Eisteddfod. The task: identify, research and catalogue the objects on their table, then design and curate an exhibition. There were some brilliant ideas flying around and Eisteddfod house points abounded.

In the overheard words of one pupil: “I’m glad we did this Miss. I thought it was going to be boring but it was really good!”

Below are some pictures of one class’s efforts.

Romans at home and at war

Cynon Valley domestic items exhibit: note that the group made up and printed their information cards during the class time (we were impressed!)